


Always On The Tip Of My Tongue

by RoxisAngel



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #BuckyNatWeek, F/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, Spies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoxisAngel/pseuds/RoxisAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fight on the helicarrier, after he rescued Steve from the Potomac, the Winter Soldier finds Natasha Romanoff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always On The Tip Of My Tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Oof. I had no idea that it was going to get this long, or this big. If I knew that, I might have tweaked some things, but I'm happy with the finished product. 
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH to Anna for her amazing artwork and for cheering me on whenever she got drafts. :D

_Plink!_

Natasha opened her eyes, abruptly and completely awake. Still, it took her a moment to orient herself in her unfamiliar surroundings. She was in her new brownstone, in the first bedroom on the second floor. It wasn’t a safe-house, or probably a very safe house in general, given its age, but it’s address hadn’t been released onto the internet like her old civilian apartment had been. That was just luck, though — she’d forgotten to pick up a change of address form before her weekend. Then she and Steve had got pulled into the _Lemurian Star_ mission first-thing when she’d gone back to work, and things had snowballed from there.

She slowly released the tension in her muscles as she took stock of the room. She was laying on her side, curled up in the middle of her king-sized bed. The tension in her limbs was from her sudden awakening, the pain in her left shoulder was from the gunshot wound, the extra weight on her body from the fleece blanket spread over her duvet, even through the April night was slightly too warm to warrant multiple blankets.

There was a streetlamp roughly level with her bedroom window. It made getting to sleep without her blackout curtains difficult, but Natasha wasn’t trying too hard to find them yet. The light meant that she could see all of the unpacked boxes in her room without much difficulty. The boxes were all shoved firmly against the wall so that no intruders could use them for cover without her knowing about it.

_Plink!_

The sound came again from the oriel window. Natasha stretched out, still on her right side, and waited.

_Plink!_

This time, she saw a small movement accompany the noise. It looked as if someone was throwing pebbles at the glass. Slowly she slid out of bed, careful of her shoulder, and grabbed a knife from the small end table next to her bed. Then Natasha slunk over to the window on quiet feet. Carefully, she moved aside a corner of the ugly yellow paisley curtain and looked down at the street below.

A man was standing under the streetlight outside her window. His dark hair was rumpled, falling around his shoulders, and he was wearing ill-fitting clothes that Natasha guessed were probably stolen. Even from her high vantage point, Natasha could see the sheen of sweat on his face, and noticed how he leaned back against the metal pole for support.

She let the curtain fall closed and moved to the far side of the room where her clothes were stored, and dressed as quickly and quietly as she was able. Part of her wished that Clint was here – while she was able to take care of herself while wounded, she didn’t like doing it alone and appreciated the backup. She also appreciated how Clint would help change her bandages; it was a pain to do them on her own, especially since she only had one hand. Unfortunately, Clint had been on a long-term mission in Afghanistan when SHIELD had gone under, and he was still lying low somewhere in the region. He’d managed to text her before she’d gone to bed that night and said that he’d be stateside in a few days.

The arrival of the Winter Soldier was a particularly delicate situation, though, and if Clint were here tonight, his presence would most likely hinder her rather than help.

The man was still standing under the light when Natasha came downstairs and opened the front door.

“Come in,” she said in Russian.

He swallowed instead of speaking, mouth kept tightly shut, but climbed the stairs and followed her.

She lead him to the first-floor bathroom, gave him an elastic in case he wanted to tie his hair back, and left him to it. They’d been on different drugs during their Red Room days. Her detox had been difficult, and there was no doubt that his would be as well, but comparing the two to see which one was “worse” would be like comparing apples and oranges. She had been given implanted memories and skills, a kill switch or three, and drugs to control her. He had brainwashing, sedatives, and been put on ice only to be woken up again, wiped, and pointed at another target. It was just different forms of torture, in the end.

The kitchen was mostly unpacked, but it didn’t contain a lot of food yet; again, that had been another thing she’d been meaning to do over her weekend. Luckily, Sam had come over the night before for a stiff drink and to tell her about how Steve had argued with the doctors until he had gotten discharged from the hospital a mere four hours after he had woken up, even though he still had three bullet wounds and broken ribs. At the end of the night, Sam had left her a box of pantry staples and canned foods. It was a touching gesture, and it made Natasha feel bad that she’d unintentionally told Sam to stay in a building that she knew was getting crushed by a falling helicarrier. That was something that didn’t happen very often to her.

Natasha picked up a can of chicken noodle soup, but then saw a carton of broth and wondered if she should just heat the broth up instead. The food that the Red Room served was bland and flavorless to avoid triggering any surviving scent memory, with as much nutrients and as many calories as possible. Even food from a can might be too much right now, especially since she didn’t know when he had last eaten. She decided to water down the broth a little, just in case.

Natasha put a pot on the stove, turned it on, and poured in the carton of chicken broth and a little bit of water. A nutritional drink would probably be the best option, but she didn’t keep that in her house – after SHIELD had brought her in and she’d gone through her own long detox, she’d had to have a nutritional drink with every meal in order to keep her weight up. Still, if the Winter Soldier was going to stay with her, she should buy some the next time she went grocery shopping.

While the broth warmed, she went back to the bathroom. The man was currently in between heaves, curled up on the bath mat in front of the toilet. He sat up when she came in and looked at her with bloodshot eyes. Then he leaned over the toilet and heaved again. Nothing came up this time.

“There is broth on the stove,” Natasha said when he sat back again. “When it is warm, would you like some?”

The man wiped his mouth and looked at her, but said nothing.

“Would you like some tea?” Natasha asked.

No response.

There was so much history between them, decades of working together, years of being lovers. At one time, Natasha would have no problem with reaching out to touch him, feeling his forehead to check for a fever, or holding his hair back while he vomited. Now, there were too many variables. She didn’t know what he remembered, or why he had come to her – especially when it was Steve who had broken through the Winter Soldier’s conditioning, or at least put some serious cracks in it. She didn’t know how he felt about her defecting, if he even knew. She had been wiped from his memory before, and didn’t doubt it that his makers would do it again if they had the chance.

It would be useless to ask now, though, so she held her tongue.

Natasha went back to the kitchen, checked the broth, and started water for tea. The broth was close to being done, so she found a pad of paper and began a grocery list. When the broth began to bubble, Natasha ladled some of the broth into a soup mug and took it back to the bathroom. The man was sitting with his back against the counter now; she took it as a good sign that he wasn’t facing the toilet any more.

“This is for you,” Natasha said, still speaking in Russian. She crouched down so that she was on his level, took a sip of the hot liquid, and then sat the cup on the floor near his hand. They both had the same poison immunities; she hoped he didn’t think she’d acquired any new ones during their time apart. “It’s chicken broth. Be careful, it’s still hot.”

Slowly, the man picked up the cup, sniffed, and sipped. He licked his dry lips and drank again.

Natasha shifted so that she was sitting on the tile instead of crouching over it, then scooted over a few inches so that she could lean back against the linen closet door instead of against the claw-footed tub.

Soon, the cup was empty. As the man put the cup back on the floor, Natasha idly wondered if she should have offered water as well.

“Thank you,” the man said. His voice was hoarse, but whether from exertion or disuse she didn’t know.

“Do you want more?” Natasha asked.

He gave the barest hint of a nod, so she stood up, picked up the cup, and went to the kitchen again. When she came back, she had a mug of tea in addition to more broth.

“What should I call you?” she asked as she set down the cups and settled back against the closet door again.

The man shrugged. He picked up the cup of broth and turned it in his fingers. “I don’t know.” He looked up and met her eyes. “What do I call you?”

“Natalia is fine,” she said. She picked up the tea and blew on the surface. “I anglicized my name when I started to work for SHIELD, but I like it when you call me Natalia.” It was her full name, not a diminutive, but at the time she’d wanted to hold onto every piece of her identity that she could. Even going by a shortened name seemed unacceptable, not when she’d worked so hard to remember her full one.

“Natalia,” he said.

He said nothing else, and the silence began to stretch out. Natasha shifted, the pain in her shoulder increasing. She couldn’t remember the exact time she’d taken her last pain medication; she’d set up a reminder on her phone, but it was in her room and there was no way she’d hear the quiet vibration all the way downstairs. She could guess that it was time more more pills, though.

The man saw her wince. “I’m sorry I shot you.”

“You did what you had to do,” Natasha said. She didn’t have to like the results, but she knew what his masters would do if he disobeyed orders. In comparison, a bullet that went clean through her body was a relief. It hurt and it was more than an inconvenience, but she would heal eventually. She always did.

“Not the second time,” the man said. He spoke slowly, paused even more between sentences. Natasha waited patiently. “I could have gone after the man on the bridge. I probably should have.”

She gave him that.

  


 

#

The next time she woke up, it was because Tony Stark wouldn’t stop calling her. When her phone first started to ring, Natasha rolled onto her good side and let it go to voice mail. There was a special ring tone for when there were emergencies and Tony was calling through JARVIS, but this wasn’t it. The second time it rang, moments after the missed call tone, Natasha pulled the blankets up over her head and angled her face so that she could still breathe fresh air.

The third time, the man poked her in the back with a cool finger. Grumbling, Natasha slid out of bed, grabbed the phone, and answered it. It was mid-morning and the sunlight was bright even through the curtains, but after her interrupted sleep it felt like the crack of dawn. “What do you want, Stark?”

“I’ve been standing on your doorstep for the last fifteen minutes,” Tony said. “Let me in. I brought breakfast for us, and the coffee’s getting cold.”

Natasha grimaced. “I think it can wait a few more minutes.” She disconnected and turned her phone off.

After a moment of consideration, Natasha grabbed a pair of jeans and a tank top and took them into the bathroom to change. The clothes looked good, but they were also practical. She could easily unpack her things and move furniture – or she could if her shoulder would allow it. She changed the bandages on her shoulder, took her pills, and dressed. Then she brushed her hair, lined her eyes lightly, and added a swipe of lip gloss across her mouth.

Natalie Rushman had always been poised and put together during her stint as Tony Stark’s personal assistant, so now Natasha acted that way around Tony. It was for the best if she carried over some of the traits of her covers when she presented herself to former marks. If she didn’t, people tended to get a little freaked out if they realized how totally and completely she could turn into someone else.

Before going downstairs, Natasha went back to her bedroom. She hadn’t been adverse to sharing a bed with the man – literally, as neither of them were really able to do it figuratively at the moment – but she was hesitant about him staying in her bedroom unsupervised for a long period of time. There was a lot of sensitive material tucked away amongst her possessions. But any alternatives she could think of, such as moving the mattress to another room, would take too long to set up, so she decided to just let it be.

The man had rolled over into the warm spot she’d left, but he was still awake and looked up at her when she entered.

“Stay up here,” Natasha said. “Don’t let anyone see you.”

He nodded. Slowly, he shifted around so that when he pulled the blankets over his head, it was hard to tell that there was a person in the bed. Natasha nodded her head in satisfaction and went downstairs.

Tony was still standing on the front steps when Natasha opened the door. With a cardboard tray of coffee in his hand and an insulated food bag hanging off his other arm, he looked like a delivery guy with a weird sense of what the word “uniform” meant.

Natasha leaned against the door frame, blocking his entrance, and crossed her arms. “How did you find me?” Maybe she had been wrong when she’d thought that her address was still hidden.

“I have my own resources,” Tony said with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry – I didn’t find it through the leaked SHIELD files. Now, will you let me in? You’re basically a public figure now, and if _I_ could find you, then the paps—”

She yanked him inside and closed the door.

Tony surveyed the entryway with a critical eye, taking in the peeling paint and scuff marks by the molding. He didn’t make an immediate comment about the brownstone’s run-down look. Natasha didn’t know why, because Tony’s brain-to-mouth filter didn’t work even half of the time, but right now she was grateful because it let her get a word in edgewise.

“Tony, what are you doing here?” Natasha asked.

Tony turned around to face her and raised the insulated bag. “Food first, talk later.”

Natasha was a little impressed, despite herself, as Tony spread out his haul across the kitchen counter. There was more coffee, a box of donuts, breakfast burritos, and assorted fruit. A small part of Natasha scoffed at what a waste it was to have a breakfast that large for two people, but the larger part of her was already trying to figure out how to wheedle Tony into giving her the leftovers. He could be ridiculously generous when he wanted, and she _was_ wounded . . .

“So,” Tony said conversationally as he swallowed a bite of burrito, “this place is kind of a dump.”

Natasha shrugged. It needed some new paint and the entire house needed to be deep-cleaned, but structurally it was sound and there were a lot of hiding places where she could stash money or extra weapons.

“It’s also pretty easy to find, being a house. Just go to Google Street View and you can see the front door right there,” Tony continued.

“What’s your point?” Natasha asked.

“I think you should come live with me and the rest of the Avengers in the Tower,” Tony said. “It’ll be fun. You’ll get an entire floor all to yourself that you can booby-trap to your heart’s content.” He went on, listing the perks: free rent, free utilities, free cleaning crew, indoor gym, indoor pool, top-of-the-line security, and access to JARVIS. Suites included full kitchens, laundry rooms, and multiple bedrooms that weren’t the size of a closet.

“Who else is going to be there?” Natasha asked. She wasn’t going to dismiss the offer, not yet, but it would be a while before she decided to move anywhere else. “Besides Bruce.”

“Everyone, once I get my hands on them,” Tony said.

“Who’s already agreed?” Natasha asked. “Besides Bruce.”

Tony paused, mouth working. “Well, there’s Pepper,” he finally said.

“Am I the first person, or has everyone else already said no?” she asked.

“I talked to Thor, and he wants to come but his girlfriend will have to find a job here and that might take some time,” Tony said, the pep back in his step. “So he’s almost in, but not quite. I asked Steve a few weeks ago and he passed on it, but now that he doesn’t have a job anymore and his apartment is still blocked off with police tape, I think he’ll see the light. So, that leaves you and Barton, but since Barton is nowhere to be found, I’m asking you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Natasha said. The idea really was tempting. She had enough savings to live off of for a while, but like Tony had said, she was a public figure and living in a more secure environment would certainly be preferable. But before she could make any decisions, she had to figure out a plan for the man upstairs. There was no way she could move into Stark Tower with him in tow, not with Steve around. “There’s some business I need to take care of first. Give me a few weeks, and then I’ll give you an answer.”

After Tony left, Natasha spent most of the day running errands. She went grocery shopping, went to the bank, met up with Steve for a late lunch, picked up some clothes that would fit the Winter Soldier, and then dropped everything off at the house. When the man decided that he liked the chocolate-flavored nutritional drink best, she went back out and grabbed more of that. That evening, she went to a dive bar to catch up with an old friend from her mercenary days and came home with four different highly classified files.

The Red Room’s file was thick with photographs and schematics. Natasha had seen her own file before, and knew that they had recorded everything, even down to the results of the trainees’ weekly physicals. There were descriptions of training exercises, skills, missions. The bed the trainee slept in at night, the drugs they were given, the meals they ate. Maps of bases. Pictures of targets. Infractions, punishments, results. When the Winter Soldier had been out of the ice, his file was similar: doctors reports, blueprints of his metal arm, mission reports.

After the Red Room had officially dissolved with the Soviet Union, its trappings were sold off to the highest bidder, agents and bases included. In addition to grabbing a few compounds near the Arctic Circle, HYDRA had snatched up the Winter Soldier and enough technology and information so that they could use him. They kept detailed files about his capabilities, missions, and how he was kept, but they had no information about his time in the Red Room, nothing that could tie the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow together.

SHIELD’s file was empty in comparison. There were no pictures, no certainty, no real investigation. It was only a collection of names and rumors, barely three pages long.

The fourth file was Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes’ file from the U.S. Army.

Natasha stayed up late that night, contemplating which file she should give Steve. He wanted so badly to have his best friend back. If Natasha was a kind person, she would have told him that the man once known as Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes had shown up at her doorstep and let the rest happen.

But doing that would not be kind to the man in her house. He came to her because she could act as a refuge. If he wanted to go to Steve, he could have. In the end, that was what mattered most.

She heard a whisper of movement behind her and turned to see the man standing peering over her shoulder. His hair was damp from a shower, and he was wearing some of the clothes she had bought him, a soft long-sleeved shirt and jeans. By now, he had stopped puking and was able to keep nutritional drinks down, but the trade-off was that he had tremors in his hands. Overall, though, the man was going through physical withdrawal symptoms with remarkable ease and quickness.

Natasha gestured to the seat beside her on the couch, and the man sat down.

“What are you doing?” the man asked.

“Steve wants to go find you,” Natasha said, gesturing to the files that were laid out across the coffee table. “He asked me to dig up any information on you that I could. I’m trying to decide which information I should give him.”

“You haven’t told him I’m here?” the man asked.

“No,” Natasha said. “If you want to see him, that’s your decision.”

The man picked up each folder one by one, examining the contents of each. With a surprisingly roguish grin, he passed her SHIELD’s file and said, “Give him this one.”

#

In the end, with the man’s permission, Natasha translated HYDRA’s file into English. She gave it and the original to Steve the day of Fury’s funeral, after the mourners had left and Fury had come out of the shadows.

Aside from an afternoon spent in front of a Senate subcommittee, she spent the next few weeks laying low, avoiding Tony and listening noncommittally to Steve as he cycled through plans. He thought that Bucky was lost and needed to be found; that Bucky wanted revenge and it would only be a matter of time before HYDRA cells started falling like dominoes, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in his wake; that Bucky was going to find Steve on his own when he was ready. Natasha almost felt bad, thinking of the man in her home, but he could go to Steve if he wanted. He just hadn’t wanted to yet.

Natasha asked the man about it one morning when they were still lying in bed. Their relationship was still platonic for now, but Natasha couldn’t deny that her romantic feelings for him were coming back. She liked snuggling up on the nights when the nightmares weren’t bad, preferred his weight to that of the fleece blanket that was now stored in her closet.

“Why did you come to me that night?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” the man asked.

“I thought that Steve would have make a bigger impression on you, is all,” she said. The last entry in HYDRA’s file said that he had been wiped after the attack on the bridge. He shouldn’t have remembered her at all. “But you found me instead.”

“He did . . . at first,” the man said slowly. His words always came slow, and it was worse if he spoke in English. “But I remembered a small Steve Rogers, and I remembered a large Captain America, and I couldn’t quite fit the two together. But then I remembered you, and I heard some people talking about where you lived, and when I saw you, you were still the same. Except the hairstyle, but you’ve had to change your hair a lot.”

“How much do you remember?” Natasha asked. She desperately wanted to roll onto her stomach and prop herself up on her elbows so she could look down at him, but her shoulder still wasn’t up to that yet. She could heal remarkably fast, but major injuries still took time, even with routine physical therapy. Instead, she turned over so that she was facing him. She could at least lie on either side, now.

“I remember the Red Room. I remember you,” he said. He ran a cool finger down the side of her neck and watched her shiver. Then his hand drew back. “I remember that I had sisters and that I knew Steve, but . . . it’s all jumbled.”

“How so?” Natasha asked.

“I think Steve is American, and my sisters were, too. But the Soviets said I was a hero in the war. They wouldn’t call me a hero if I were fighting against them, would they?” the man asked.

“It sounds like that’s exactly what they did, just in case you remembered anything,” Natasha said. “Do you have any memories of the war?”

“A little bit,” the man said. “I read that file you have on Barnes. I remember a lot of that, but it’s not in order. Like, I read that he was in America, then he got drafted and went to basic, then he got shipped off to the European Theater in that order. I have memories from when I was in America, I remember some of basic, I’m pretty sure I was in the European Theater. But my memories . . . there’s no time line. I can’t remember seeing films about Captain America and know that happened after I was done with basic. With my memories, you could say that I was in Europe first and went back to America later, and I wouldn’t have anything to counter that.”

“Do you feel like you could have been Barnes?” Natasha asked.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “When I read his file, I can recall almost everything that happened to him as if it had happened to me. But at the same time, I feel so detached from everything. And I don’t know if it’s because the memories are so old, or because they were implanted.”

Natasha was quiet for a long time. That was a hard question, and she wasn’t sure of the answer herself. She had so many covers, so many histories. Even how she came into the Red Room was subject to confusion. Had she been brought into the program as a young woman and given false memories to make killing easier? Was she voluntarily placed in the Red Room as a small child, by earnest parents who would do anything they could to help the motherland? Or had she really seen them killed and watched her childhood home burn as strange men dragged her small body into a waiting car?

“Every one of my memories feels real to me, no matter how old they are,” Natasha finally said. “Even when they conflict with each other. Especially when they conflict with each other.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Eventually, Natasha rolled onto her back. She was going to meet Clint for brunch in an hour and a half, but there was still time for her to lay in bed.

“Do you think I was Barnes?” the man finally asked.

“I think it’s possible,” Natasha said slowly. It was certainly the least complicated explanation for the matching memories. To think that the Winter Soldier was given Barnes’ memories artificially wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, but it was certainly a stretch. “It’s the easiest explanation.”

“Do you think I should be Barnes?” the man asked. “Even though I’m not sure I’m really him?”

“That’s something you have to decide for yourself,” Natasha said. “Personally, I don’t think you should pretend to be someone you’re not.”

The man raised his eyebrows. “Says the professional spy.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and waved a hand at him as she threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. “I’m not talking about me,” she said, “I’m talking about you.”

“Uh huh,” the man said.

She dressed in dark jeans and a light blouse, conscious of the man’s eyes on her as she buttoned up her shirt. That was unusual, since he usually pulled the covers over his head and went back to sleep when she got up, no matter how late it was, but the attention wasn’t unwelcome. She put a little sway in her step as she left the room.

Clint raised his eyebrows when Natasha arrived at the diner an hour later and slid into the seat opposite his. “What have you been up to lately?” he asked.

“Not much,” Natasha said. “Why?”

“You’re wearing a fancy bra, and you only wear those when you have to,” Clint said. “You’re not working, are you?”

Natasha looked down, belatedly realizing that the outline of the foam cups were faintly visible. It wasn’t glaringly obvious, but it was something that Clint would notice and something she would normally avoid. “Maybe I’m trying to impress someone,” she said.

Clint gave her a suspicious look, but thankfully he didn’t pry. Instead, he pushed the heavy leather-bound menu over to her side of the table and said, “You have to order pie-in-a-shake. It’s amazing.”

“That’s disgusting,” Natasha said, recoiling in horror at the full-page advertisement on the back of the menu. “Why would you put pie in a blender?” The addition of ice cream didn’t make it sound any better.

After the waitress came by and took their orders – neither of them ordered the shake – Clint settled back in his seat and asked, “Did Tony ever come by and offer you a place at the Tower?”

“Yes he did,” Natasha said. “I’m surprised he didn’t tell you that already.”

Clint shrugged. “Okay, he did tell me, ‘cause he thinks you’re avoiding him and wants to know why.”

“I’ve been busy,” Natasha said.

“I don’t think Tony would throw that big of a fit if you turned him down,” Clint said, nudging her foot with his under the table. “Or, you could just say yes and keep living in your house anyway.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Natasha asked.

“Nope,” Clint said cheerfully. “I moved in as soon as possible. Aside from the talking walls and the fact that I have to take Lucky up and down two million stories every time he has to go pee, it’s pretty great.”

The waitress came by again with their food and a fresh pot of coffee. Clint immediately drowned his waffles in maple syrup and began to shovel them into his mouth, and Natasha was busy tucking into her BLT, so the next few minutes were quiet.

“So, what’s making you so busy that you can’t give Tony an answer?” Clint finally asked.

Natasha grimaced and eyed the diner. They were at a booth in the back, near the jukebox that was loudly playing Elvis. There wasn’t anyone around who could hear them, so she chanced it and quietly said, “The Winter Soldier found me after his fight with Steve on the helicarrier. I knew him from . . . before, so I let him stay. And, um, he’s still there.”

Clint let out a low whistle. “You heard about the manhunt for him, right?”

“Of course,” Natasha said. Thankfully, the media hadn’t caught on to Steve’s suspicions that the Winter Soldier and Sgt. James Barnes were one and the same. The CIA and Interpol were running out of leads, and she hoped that everything would die down sooner rather than later.

“Who else knows?” Clint asked.

“Just you,” Natasha said.

“Fuck,” Clint said. “Steve doesn’t know?”

“No,” Natasha said. “He hasn’t wanted to contact Steve, and I have to respect that.”

Clint grimaced. She hadn’t told him everything about the Red Room, but they’d worked together for over a decade now, and he heard bits and pieces here and there. He knew how she wouldn’t make decisions for other people, and why she thought that way.

“Do you think Tony would help you out?” Clint said. “I mean, if you asked?”

“Maybe from the government, but I’m not going to move in there and ask Tony to help me hide him from Steve,” Natasha said. She sighed. “Look, I’ll figure something out. Just stay quiet for a while, will you?”

“Yeah, okay,” Clint said.

Steve texted her when she was on the train home; he’d finally decided to check out a HYDRA facility in northern Siberia, and wanted to know if she was interested in coming. Natasha didn’t recognize the coordinates as a former Red Room base, so she agreed and by the time the train came to her stop, they’d hammered out an itinerary.

The man was up and dressed and making soup in the kitchen when she walked in the front door. A pot of stock was simmering on the stove, and he was standing over a cutting board, cutting up carrots with precision. It turned out that he was actually a decent cook – better than Natasha, at least – even if he mostly boiled everything.

“I’m going to be gone for a few days,” Natasha said, dropping her purse on the counter. “Are you going to be okay with that?”

“Sure, but you might want to run to the grocery store first before you leave,” the man said. Finished with the carrots, he slid them into a waiting bowl and then reached for the celery. “I can make you a list.”

“Thank you,” Natasha said.

“Where are you going?” the man asked.

“Siberia,” she said. “Steve wants to go check out a defunct HYDRA base, and he needs a translator.”

“Be careful,” he said.

“You know I always am.”

#

The weather was in the high sixties when Steve and Natasha arrived in Tura. Steve had been surprised at the heat, thinking that it would be cold even in the middle of summer, but he quickly ditched his coat and didn’t complain too much when Natasha teased him.

They spent the night at a small hotel, and then went to the base around noon. It was comprised of low concrete buildings and a truly bizarre amount of fencing. The base had only been abandoned a few years ago, but already it was showing wear and tear – apparently the local kids had decided that the main courtyard was a prime party spot, and there were already furniture set up and bottles strewn everywhere.

“I hope no one took off with anything important,” Steve said, surveying the damage to the courtyard.

“Let’s see if the inside is any different,” Natasha said. Steve broke the lock when they found the administrative building, but Natasha took point as they explored the inside. She could read the signs, after all.

The inside was trashed, but in a different way – before the facility had been abandoned, someone had gone through and emptied drawers and filing cabinets, tipping over desks and chairs. Even a vending machine in the break room was smashed. Luckily, most of the papers had stupidly been put in secure shred containers instead of being shredded immediately, and it was easy enough to break the lock and take them out.

“What does it say?” Steve asked as Natasha poked through them.

“This is just financial stuff, like how much body armor they bought the last fiscal year,” she said. “It’s definitely useful for someone, but not for us, not right now.”

Steve sat down next to her after a while. “It’s times like this that I wish SHIELD was still around,” he said. “Well, not SHIELD, exactly, but, you know, someone who could come and cart everything and wade through it all instead of us. Or just you.”

“Try searching for a map,” Natasha said. “Maybe something like that could help us.”

Steve left the room, and she continued reading. He was gone for maybe fifteen minutes when Natasha looked up and realized how _quiet_ her surroundings were.

It wasn’t the same silence that she had walked into. That had just _been_ , but this was . . . anticipatory.

Natasha picked up her phone and dialed Steve. Right now, she missed earpieces more than having interns look through all of the paperwork. “Steve, where are you?”

“Uh, I think I’m in a gym,” Steve said. “Why?”

“Get out of there.” Carefully, Natasha edged over to a nearby window. The view looked out onto a grassy field. The road itself wasn’t visible, but the top of their rental car was – along with the tops of at least three SUVs and two vans.

“Wha—?” From his end of the line, she heard the sound of gunfire and then a door slam shut. Panting slightly, Steve said, “Okay, I’ll call you back later.” He disconnected abruptly.

“Some commander you are,” she muttered darkly to herself. They were separated and without backup, and he’d said nothing about a meeting place.

Natasha was armed, but this trip was supposed to be just for intelligence gathering and, coupled with the fact that she and Steve had traveled as civilians, that mean she didn’t have her usual arsenal on her. That didn’t make her job impossible, but it did make it harder, so she had to be careful. She turned and scanned the room – she and Steve had only opened one secure shred bin, and there were two still more in the room. She could drag a desk behind them; that would give her some cover.

Once she was hidden, with one of her pistols held at the ready, she sat and waited. She could hear distant gunfire, but eventually it tapered off and there was only the sound of her quiet breathing.

And then there wasn’t.

A breeze suddenly ruffled the papers that were scattered on the ground. The door was just about the only thing that was silent. She could hear the men breathing, their leather belts squeaking, the sound of their boots as they waded through piles of shredded paper. One whispered quietly in German and was quickly hit – punched in the arm, most likely – as a reminder to be quiet.

A few minutes after the group disappeared into the bowels of the building, Natasha quietly moved the desk back so she could stand and then climbed out of her hiding spot. The room was empty again, so she crept to the door and peered out.

The courtyard was also silent and empty. She hung back by the door, trying to figure out a plan of action. It looked like their rental car was blocked in, but she was reasonably sure that she could hot-wire any other vehicle and leave on her own, if she had to. She couldn’t leave Steve on his own, though—

Just as she thought that, the distant gunfire got louder. A moment later, Steve rounded the corner of the building, sprinting her way as fast as he could.

She got off a few shots at the men behind him, and then joined Steve in his sprint for the gate. It chained closed now, but then suddenly it wasn’t, and then Steve raised his shield and crashed right through.

“I thought this place was supposed to be abandoned,” Steve huffed as they turned and started to run down the road.

Natasha just shook her head and kept running. When they got to the group of cars, they ducked behind the nearest one. Natasha raised her pistol and shot the nearest HYDRA soldier. He fell in the road, and so did the next, and the next—

And then the last fell before she pulled the trigger.

Natasha blinked. There had been a lot more than four men following her and Steve, but every single member of the group chasing them was now dead in the road. One had even been shot before he left the gates.

The bullet that killed the last man came from the hill that some distance to the left of the road. Natasha couldn’t see anyone from her vantage point, but there was a copse of evergreens and shrub near the top that would provide good cover for a sniper.

“That’s not everyone,” Steve said, looking from the cars to the men in the road.

Natasha flicked the safety on her pistol on and holstered it. “Yeah, let’s go before more show up.”

She hot-wired one of the vans that was blocking the rental car and moved it out of the way. Then she got in the driver’s seat of their car and took off.

“Do you think we’re going to be allowed to fly out of here, or should we drive somewhere else?” Steve asked.

Natasha shook her head. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Driving would take days. It’d be easier to get on a plane as quick as possible and lay low somewhere else.”

Miraculously, her plan went off without a hitch. They returned their car, and got onto the first flight to Novosibirsk. There, they holed up for a few days in a defunct SHIELD safe-house. Steve watched the news endlessly, while Natasha called contacts. Somehow, everything was quiet; there were hints that _something_ unusual had happened near Tura, but nothing that would throw suspicion onto Natasha and Steve. After Natasha was sure that they weren’t being followed, she arranged for them to travel to Moscow by train, and then take a truly ridiculous number of flights to get the rest of the way home.

“Is this really necessary?” Steve asked when he saw their schedule.

“Yes,” Natasha said. She pointed at one stop. “We have a pretty long layover in Paris. You’ll have time to go to the Louvre, if you want to.”

“It’s probably expensive,” Steve hedged.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You’ve been living in America too long.”

All thoughts of playing tourist were forgotten when they boarded the train the next day. Natasha had got them into a first class couchette car to give them a little more privacy, but they would probably still had to share a compartment with two other people. One man was already there when they arrived.

When he turned to look at them, Natasha stopped in her tracks.

It was the man.

“Bucky?” Steve said behind her.

The man scanned the room, and Natasha put her arms out to block him as much as Steve. “Don’t you dare,” she said.

The man pressed his lips together, but he took a step back and asked, in Russian, “Are you mad?”

“What are you saying?” Steve asked. “Natasha, what did he say?”

Natasha ignored him and took a minute to consider her feelings. She wasn’t mad, exactly. There technically weren’t any rules that said he had to stay in her house; it was just safer that he didn’t leave, and she’d become used to that. So she was surprised that he’d left, not mad. But while his support in Tura had certainly been helpful, she hadn’t told him where she was going and he must have gone snooping to find that out. That hurt, and she hated that he’d violated her privacy like that, but anger still wasn’t the right emotion. “How did you figure out where I was going?”

“You said it was a defunct HYDRA base in Siberia, so I went through your copy of the file you gave him”—the man jerked his head in Steve’s direction—“and guessed.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Lucky guess.”

The man shrugged.

“Natasha, what’s going on?” Steve asked.

Natasha dropped her arms and took a seat on the bench to her left. She met the man’s eyes, and then they both glanced at Steve.

“I don’t want to tell him,” the man said, suddenly childish. “You tell him.”

“No, you tell him,” Natasha said, matching his tone.

#

When the story finally came out, Steve wasn’t happy. But it didn’t come to blows, because whenever Steve got in Natasha’s face, the man would step up, and when it looked like the men might start a fight, Natasha pulled them apart.

Once the man had completed his side of the story, about how he’d finished off the other HYDRA soldiers to give Natasha and Steve a clean exit, Steve left their compartment to take a walk down the corridor.

Natasha stayed with the man until after the attendant had finished setting up the beds and disappeared into the next compartment to do the same. Then, Natasha slipped out and walked down the train until she found Steve in the dining car.

“How are you doing?” she asked as she slid into the seat opposite him.

“I just . . . ” Steve shook his head and changed the subject. “How can you not call him anything? Even if he doesn’t want to go by Bucky, he still has a name.”

“Not when I knew him,” Natasha said. All she had told Steve in the compartment was that she didn’t call the man anything; she hadn’t wanted to go into too much detail when the man was right there. Now, she told Steve everything. “You read the file. Winter Soldier was the project name, and if he had to be called anything, his handlers called him the Asset.”

“You didn’t call him anything when you . . . knew each other, before?” Steve asked, fumbling over their past romantic relationship. “Not even making one up, or giving him a nickname?”

“No,” Natasha said. “He never asked me to do that, so I didn’t. I have to respect his wishes.”

They continued in that vein for some time, until Steve could finally wrap his head around the things she said. It still didn’t entirely make sense to him, Natasha knew, but he accepted that it didn’t make sense and could move on.

Of course, once that was sorted out, Steve started lobbying for Natasha and the man to move into Stark Tower with the rest of the Avengers. Natasha and Sam were the only ones not permanently living in the Tower now, and only Natasha hadn’t claimed her suite. Even though Sam stayed at his regular apartment most nights – it was closer to the New York VA office he’d transferred to – he still dropped by for weekly team dinners and had more than just a change of clothes stored in his rooms.

Natasha and the man talked it over during a late breakfast the next morning. Steve was still sleeping in, annoyed with all of the time changes.

“People are still searching for me, though,” the man said.

“You don’t have to go _tell_ the CIA that you’re moving into the Tower,” Natasha pointed out. “But if you do want to come out into the open, I think that telling them you’re James Barnes would give you a better outcome than if you didn’t say anything at all.”

The man speared a piece of blini and chewed it thoughtfully. “I think – no, I _want_ you to call me James.”

“James?” Natasha said. He nodded. “Just the once, or until future notice?”

“Forever,” he said. Under the table, his shoes bumped hers meaningfully.

Natasha was very interested to see where this was going to go. “Do you think Steve’s ready to get up?” she asked.

James glanced at the menu on the far wall and nodded. “I think we should make him, even if he doesn’t want to. He’s going to miss out on free coffee refills if he doesn’t get up soon.”

“And that would be such tragedy,” Natasha said.

Together, they left the dining car and went back to their compartment. Natasha woke up Steve, and then retreated outside to protect his modesty while he dressed. But once Steve had been shoved in the direction of the dining car, she and James slipped back into the room and closed the door.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?” James asked as Natasha wound her fingers into his hair. He crowded her back against the door, but his hands were light on her neck and waist. He was always like this with her in the beginning – getting as close as he possibly could, but keeping his touch light as a sign that he could back off, if she wanted him to.

Natasha released him long enough to roll her shoulder experimentally. It still wasn’t one hundred percent. The adventure in Tura hadn’t helped it, but at least it hadn’t hurt it. “No gymnastic sex, but it’s mostly fine.”

They weren’t quite there when Steve opened the door to their compartment half an hour later, although they did have their hands down each others pants as they made out on one of the benches. Natasha was trying her best to give James a proper handjob, but she was too distracted by his tongue in her mouth and his tireless metal fingers on her clit.

They pulled apart at Steve’s exclamation of surprise, but by the time Natasha figured out where the door was, it had already been slammed shut.

“Well, he’s not here, so does that mean we can keep going?” James asked.

“If you want to, but make it quick,” Natasha said.

He turned his attention back to her. “I guess I’ll have to eat you out later.”

“You better.”

They got off the train twelve hours later and took a cab to the airport together, but that was where their shared path ended. Natasha and Steve got on a plane to Paris, while James got on a plane to Berlin.

In New York three days later, Natasha stayed with Steve and followed him to the Tower. She let JARVIS show her to her apartment, which was currently decorated in a modern, if bland, style that Tony Stark's favorite interior decorator would favor. There, she dumped her luggage in the entry way, found the master bedroom, and slept for ten hours straight.

When she woke up, James was in her bed. He was on the opposite side of the ridiculously large mattress, and she recognized him as soon as she saw him. His distance meant that was far enough away that he didn’t wake when she crawled out of bed to use the bathroom, drink a tall glass of water, and start water for tea. With that taken care of, Natasha got back into bed. She touched his arm lightly, then, once he was awake and knew who she was, snuggled against his back.

“Hi,” she said. She pressed her cold toes against his calves and watched him squirm.

“Morning,” he said sleepily. He lifted his head just far enough to look at the clock on the bedside table. “Or afternoon. Whatever.”

“Are you going to talk to Tony today?” Natasha asked. Without SHIELD, Tony Stark was the best protection James had against the media and various governmental agencies who wanted the Winter Soldier.

“I already did that,” James said. “Steve worked on him already, so by the time I got here Tony just threw me the keys to this place and told me to make myself at home. In return, I’m going to take a walk around Central Park sometime next week, and we’ll see what happens from there.”

Natasha ran her fingers through his hair. She had picked SHIELD specifically when she had revealed herself, and his laxness seemed unnecessarily dangerous – if the CIA got their hands on James first, for example, they might never tell the world about it.

But that was his choice to make, so she put it out of her mind and trailed a hand over his hip and into the pajama pants he slept in. “Does that mean we have time to pick up where we left off . . . ?”

James rolled over and kissed her. “I’ll always have time for you, darling.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Always On The Tip Of My Tongue [artwork]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3570926) by [passionslipsaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionslipsaway/pseuds/passionslipsaway)




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